Re: My spin on the flash bios interface...

H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
14 Feb 1998 10:22:18 GMT

Followup to: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980214005048.392D-100000@scot-mur.demon.co.uk>
By author: Robbie Murray <robbie@scot-mur.demon.co.uk>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> As for mistakes, you surely wouldn't type
>
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/bios
>
> by mistake? as root? As a few people have already pointed out, writing to
> the hd can be a lot worse unless you have a recent backup.
>

Not necessarily. On many newer MBs the BIOS flash is surface-mounted
on the MB. It means you might very well have a very expensive
paperweight on your hands, although many of them include recovery
procedures.

There is rarely a good reason to write to the BIOS, so performance is
not an issue. Hence the idea of having a safety interlock for this
device makes sense.

-hpa

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